


An Unusual Zoo

by Kedreeva



Series: The Lions of Rome [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Origin Story, sterek, where it all started
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 13:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13637295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva
Summary: This is the original ficlet I wrote on Tumblr, precursor to When Rome's in Ruins, and was the spark of inspiration for the entire saga.





	An Unusual Zoo

            With that suit, it’s really hard for me to believe that Stiles isn’t on the outside of the cage wall.

            All I can imagine is the well-dressed billionare, with his zoo full of supernaturals, secure, secret, controlled by his groundskeeper, Alan Deaton.

            And he enjoys the young kanima and the vampire twins. He finds occasion to visit the chimera and the dragonet. He avoids the harpy unless he’s feeling masochistic, and only visits the sphinx when he is feeling patient.

            But the crown of his collection, his favorite of favorites, is the dark werewolf that ranged onto his property in the dead of winter last year.

            At first he visited to goad on the creature, to watch the transformation overtake him, smooth skin prickling into coarse black fur, jaws elongating and filling with fangs. Stiles knows that if this wolf ever escaped, it wouldn’t run. It would find him. It would tear his throat out with those teeth.

            But he keeps coming back anyway. Every night he finds the time to slip in through the door, stand at the edge of the cage and watch the werewolf prowl. He is hardly ever human anymore, the red of his eyes constant even when he is.

            Sometimes… sometimes Stiles takes a risk. Sometimes he turns off the electricity before he enters. Those nights he steps up to the wall, curls his fingers through the fencing. Those nights he presses his forehead to the warm metal and stares back at Derek through the small gaps.

            Those nights, Derek sits completely still across the room, as human as he ever gets.

            Those nights, Stiles thinks that maybe Derek stays human because he is afraid of what the wolf might do.

 

* * *

 

            There eventually comes a night which Stiles has expected. A night when he flips the switch, takes the stairs with little hops that click his shoes on the tile. A night when he reaches the werewolf’s enclosure to find him standing at the fence, waiting.

            He hesitates, of course, but there’s really no point; Derek could tear through the metal of the cage and be upon him before he even reached the switch for the electricity. So Stiles takes what he assumes will be one of his last breaths and crosses the space between entrance and cage.

            He reaches up, curls his fingers into the mesh as he had always done before. A cool, strange sort of detachment overtakes him as the werewolf raises one clawed paw, mirroring his action.

            It’s as good a day to die as any, after all.

            When he feels the first claw touch his skin he doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t cry out, but his breath does catch in his throat, because this close he can see the color of Derek’s eyes, and there is no red at all.

            They are a clear, startlingly bright blue as he takes in Stiles’ rigid form.

            Stiles looks up, to where Derek’s very human palm is pressed against his, fingers curled over the top of Stiles’ own. Then he looks back, and Derek meets his gaze, speaks the only word Stiles has ever heard him say.

            “Alpha.”

            And Stiles may not understand everything, but he understands enough.

            And so he withdraws, keys in the lock’s combination and watches the door to the cage swing open on silent hinges.

            Because this one… this one has a different sort of cage now.


End file.
